Tanzania Journal (2)
Recurring Introduction: During August, 2021, I went to Tanzania with my family — eight of us in all. During this Fall Quarter I will post notes and images about our Safari for our course on the American wilderness. Now, of course, Tanzania is not part of the US, but by looking at wilderness in Africa, we will gain perspective on Wilderness themes and lessons in the United States.
During the first week of The History of the. American wilderness, one of our major enterprises has been defining wilderness. I think I can safely say that we all agreed that in Never Cry Wolf, the scene showing Tyler (Charles Martin Smith) flying through the Canadian Rockies and ending up alone on a frozen lake was pretty far out there as wilderness goes. This week in our film, The Revenant, we saw, arguably, an even more dramatic wilderness encounter when a grizzly bear attacked Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio).
So much for what the Puritan settlers in Wilderness and the American Mind called “the howling wilderness.”
In order to mix things up a bit, concept-wise, your instructor has asked you also to consider the encounter with wilderness as a subjective experience — one that can be “triggered” by a Japanese garden, or even by clouds over buildings in downtown Spokane.
In short, there are many kinds of encounters with wilderness, some more wild than others. Arguably, when we view animals in a zoo, we are encountering a fragment of the wild. Another kind of encounter involves seeing deer on our campus in Cheney, as I did a few months ago. (In fact, about two years ago I left the library late at night, and low and behold, there at the bottom of the library ramp was a young moose — very lost.) In such ways some places and sometimes the natural world and the civilized world blend into each other. As Roderick Nash argues, we should be aware of a spectrum of wilderness settings.
What then about the “spectrum of wilderness” concept as applied to landscapes and wildlife to be seen on an African safari? Are we encountering the true and complete wilderness un-altered, un-curated by human beings? Let’s have a look.
Our Safari took us through three national parks – Serengeti, Lake Manyara, and Tarangire – and one conservation area — Ngorogoro. In each region the wildlife is protected from poachers and roams freely. In some African parks there are regions where hiking can be part of the experience, but in these parks the animals are wild and potentially dangerous. For our sakes we were not allowed to step outside of our vehicles except at carefully selected picnic and restroom stops.
The reality of danger in this regions was underscored by a tragic event that happened the very night that we arrived in Tanzania. Three young Masai children were bringing cattle home for the evening and one of them wandered off the trail to take a pee. He stumbled upon a lion and the two other children ran to his side to try to rescue him. All three children were killed and eaten by the lion.
We would see lions up close, but we would not be at risk because we would be entered the wild-lands by a tried and trued method — in sturdy vehicles.
The question for us at Eastern as we learn about and evaluate wilderness experiences is this: does the Safari approach diminish the wilderness experience? Let’s have a look.
In recent years the Toyoto 4X4, has replaced the Land Rover as the preferred Safari vehicle. In the picture that follows both of our 4X4 are stopped, and you can get a good idea of what these Safari vehicles look like. When there is game to view, the driver-guide stops and raises the roof. In this case I am in one vehicle photographing two of my granddaughters in another viewing game. The Toyoto makes a good safe platform for viewing and photographing..
Now, here is another view of the 4X4s. The driver-guides keep up a near-constant conversation in their vehicles, alerting each when they spot lions, elephants, leopards and other interesting game. This can result in traffic jams in the jungle, as in this film clip:
So this is by and large how you see the wildlife in northern Tanzania. Is this really wilderness, given all the vehicles? In that I can see wilderness in a Japanese garden or the clouds over Spokane, you probably already know my answer. In the hopes that I can persuade most or all of you, that these African parks are the real deal when it comes to encounters with untamed nature, bear with me as I take you to one of my favorite episodes in the parks. Our guide broke away from a crowd of vehicles watching elephants in the distance. He knew the region well and drove across country to the edge of a water hole. Here is what we saw: (Notice the baby among the long legs of his kinfolk in the second clip.)
There are more animals in the Serengeti, lots and lots more. Stay tuned!